Open: Party Preparations

[madame_de_fer]

WHO: Josephine, Vivienne, OPEN
WHAT: Preparing the Inquisition for the Soiree
WHEN: 15 Guardian to 14 Drakonis (about a month's span before the event)
WHERE: Skyhold, varies
NOTES: * Josephine is the hostess of the shindig. Matters regarding invitations, guest lists, admittance, entertainment, food, or general complaints/suggestions should be directed to her.
* Vivienne has personally invited three tailors from Val Royeaux to assist with clothes making for the attendees. She is available to assist with design selections and/or advice on how to behave.
* YOU are open and invited to grab your nearest and dearest CR to complain about the party, ask for a date to he event, complain you have nothing to wear.
* Belinda Darrow has donated from her own private purse to the cost of clothing which people could otherwise not afford.

The Orlesian tailors arrived in great state, bringing with them a cadre of servants, workers, and snotty attitudes. They hate everything. It is cold in Skyhold. It is damp. Everything smells of wet dog. The working conditions are abysmal. The food is criminal. There's not a damned thing they don't complain about, except for the piles of coin they stand to make from this soiree. Yes, they are more than content to build a fortune with exclusive work that will be seen by some of the aristocracy's finest.

Harritt apparently doesn't much like them either. They've taken over his Undercroft with their fabrics and threads, designs and opinions. Oh they have opinions. He stays to one corner, attending his work, and grumbling under his breath about the poncy cheesesniffers.

Comments

[hugeinorlais]

So, considering that their last conversation had somehow managed to degenerate from slapping into awkward, emotionally-charged argument, Varric wasn't exactly eager to chat up the Seeker. He didn't have a choice, really; he was going to have to talk to Cassandra eventually, it was an inevitability. If she didn't corner him on the next mission that dragged them away from Skyhold, she'd probably accost him in a hallway; he'd done far too many questionable things to think she'd just let him off with a distant glower.

Maker, he'd interrupted an argument between her and Anders in broad daylight, hadn't he?

Yeah, he was...to say the least...not looking forward to the next conversation he'd have with the Seeker. If he wanted to survive it, and he very much did, he would have to be clever about how and when he approached her. She'd been angry enough about his omitting Corypheus from his Hawke-related-ramblings that she'd actually struck him--he could only imagine what she'd do re: Anders.

"Seeker!" Varric greeted as he forced himself to round the corner and step out onto the balcony proper. Much as he wanted to avoid Cassandra...indefinitely if possible, he decided to Hawke his way out of this one. That meant one thing: limelight and lots of it. If he put himself center stage, shoved himself right into the forefront of her day, she might just be baffled enough that she wouldn't immediately kill him.

It was a shitty plan but, hey, he didn't call it "Hawking his way out of this one" because it was founded on especially solid logic.

Cassandra, as calculated, was stuck between a seamstress and a sharp-place. He'd spotted her (from a considerable distance) as she went up to the Iron Lady's Fashion Gulag and had waited for just this opportunity. If he'd timed it right? She would be ensconced in a dozen yards of silk and several hundred pins. That she would be rendered (largely) immobile by said pins? Well, that was just a lucky bit of happenstance, wasn't it?

"I figured, after the most recent series of catastrophes, that we should maybe have a sit down and discuss "things Varric is not culpable for". Now seems like as good a time as--" Varric had charged ahead, arms sweeping in generic dramatic gestures, gaze drifting guiltlessly over the bolts of fabric--shit, he'd almost managed to play it off...until he actually looked at the Seeker.

His facade fell a bit flat as he registered the state of affairs on Vivienne's balcony. He'd expected to find the Seeker entirely wrapped and bound in place by several dozen yards of black (or slightly off black) fabric. At the moment, well, there was a very considerable swath of her that was...neither wrapped nor bound...and, Maker help him, that was exactly where his eyes went.

"Any...?" he trailed off lamely.

[stabsbooks]

This was terrible.

She had known it would be. It was why she had tried to avoid Vivienne's army of tailors for as long as she possibly could. But they had tracked her down in the end, as she had known they would, and they had brought her here, and immediately begun poking and prodding and measuring her, holding swaths of fabric up to her skin and pulling them away, and generally talking over and around her as if she was...was no more than a giant doll for them to dress up and strip as they would.

But there had been nothing to do but to endure it, and so she had braced herself and settled down to do just that. Until they had moved their attentions from her arms and waist to her chest, and begun discussing, with far too much enthusiasm and far, far too much hands-on demonstration for her taste, her...assets...and just how blatantly they should be put on display.

The tailors seemed to be of the opinion that a plunging cut right down to her sternum was both tasteful and necessary. Cassandra vehemently disagreed, but with at least two dozen pins threatening to pierce each of her arms should she reach forward more than an inch, there was little she could do.

There was only one thing in the world that could possibly make this situation worse.

"Seeker!"

And there it was.

Cassandra's eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. The tailors, resistant to all else, actually backed off at the sight of her strangled expression, but by then it was too late. He was there, and Cassandra breathed in deeply to fortify herself for this coming trial.

"Varric." She had been watching for him ever since Leliana had told them about Anders, ever since she'd realized that he'd known, but the dwarf had been suspiciously absent from both the Great Hall and the Herald's Rest in recent days. Of course, she thought bitterly, of course now he would choose to make an appearance. She moved to point a threatening finger at him, froze abruptly as the pins dug painfully into her arm, and settled for glowering for all she was worth.

And then she realized that he had actually stopped speaking of his own accord, for once in his life. She blinked down at him, realized where his gaze had settled, and - if any blush could ever truly be described as furious, it was the one that heated her cheeks at that moment.

Maker save her.

"My eyes are up here!"